A dryer caught fire at the laundry room of the Baltimore County Detention Center Friday afternoon, Baltimore County police said. No injuries were reported at the Kenilworth Drive facility in Towson where firefighters were called shortly after 3 p.m. Police said part of Kenilworth Drive was shut down. No evacuations occurred. jkanderson@baltsun.com twitter.com/janders5

A Towson attorney was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in jail for smuggling drugs into the Baltimore County jail. "I am ashamed and saddened I stand before you in this capacity," Jill Swerdlin told Circuit Judge Timothy J. Martin before the she was sentenced. Swerdlin, 47, a defense attorney who has represented suspected dealers, pleaded guilty to drug charges in June. She admitted she had smuggled Suboxone — a drug used to treat addiction to opiates — into the Baltimore County Detention Center to clients during visits.

Based on information from Baltimore County Detention Center officials, The Sun incorrectly reported in an article Tuesday the charges on which David Simms, 18, of Dundalk was being held before he was charged with a failed escape. Mr. Simms was at the center on burglary and attempted rape charges.The Sun regrets the error.

A dryer caught fire at the laundry room of the Baltimore County Detention Center Friday afternoon, Baltimore County police said. No injuries were reported at the Kenilworth Drive facility in Towson where firefighters were called shortly after 3 p.m. Police said part of Kenilworth Drive was shut down. No evacuations occurred. jkanderson@baltsun.com twitter.com/janders5

A Laurel man was being held without bail after being charged in the rape of a 22-year-old woman who said she was attacked while walking near Whiskey Bottom and Laurel Fort Meade roads, authorities said. Donald Edward McGhee, of the 3400 block of Chriswell Court, turned himself in this week after a warrant was issued charging him with second-degree rape and sexual offenses in the July 8 attack, said authorities, who added that he is being held at the Prince George's County Detention Center.

Baltimore County police said a bail review hearing was scheduled today for a Rosedale woman charged with leaving her children, who died in a fire Oct. 17, unattended.Jennifer Grant, 34, of the 6100 block of St. Regis Road, was arrested shortly after being discharged yesterday from Franklin Square Hospital, where she had been undergoing treatment for shock since the fire, police said.She was ordered held at the Baltimore County Detention Center in lieu of $250,000 bail, pending today's hearing in District Court, police said.

A 33-year-old woman has been charged with setting a fire in her Woodlawn apartment that also damaged several neighboring dwellings and injured at least six people Tuesday night, Baltimore County police said. Several residents were rescued from their balconies during the blaze at the Gwynn Oaks Landing Apartments in the 6700 block of Townbrook Drive. Arrested there as firefighters battled the two-alarm fire was resident Ronicia Lewis, who was charged with arson and held at the county detention center on $100,000 bond, police said.

Two Anne Arundel County men, one of whom has a prior escape record, escaped about 8 a.m. today while being transported from the county's detention center to the District Court building in Annapolis.County police spokesman V. Richard Molloy said Anthony James Freeland, 20, of Severn, and Donald Curtis, 21, of Glen Burnie, escaped while being taken to District Court for trial.They remained at large and police were searching, Molloy said.Molloy said the two men managed to slip free of their handcuffs while being taken to the courthouse by a private security firm used by the county.

Anne Arundel County Councilwoman Diane R. Evans resigned yesterday from the citizen task force that will select a site for a new county detention center, calling the group's decision-making process "flawed."At the same time, County Executive Robert R. Neall accused the task force of "playing games" after it eliminated a site near Glen Burnie that he favored and added other sites for consideration that he said clearly do not meet the county's criteria.Ms. Evans, a Republican from Arnold, said she was resigning because she feels the Detention Center Siting and Alternative Sentences Task Force has strayed from its original mission, which was to find a location for the new jail.

Foes of jail site in Millersville plan meetingA citizens' group angered by the selection of a Millersville site for a new county Detention Center has scheduled a meeting at 8 p.m. tonight in the cafeteria of Old Mill High School.The presidents of six nearby civic groups, who organized the meeting, have complained that the site on Veteran's Highway, just north of county police headquarters is close to several elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school.County and state elected officials have been invited to the meeting.

A Montgomery County elementary school teacher was charged Thursday in Baltimore County for possession of child pornography, police said. Lawrence Joynes, 54, of Dundalk, teaches music at New Hampshire Estates Elementary school in Silver Spring, according to the school's website. Montgomery police will be investigating whether Joynes committed any offenses in that county. A spokesman from the school system did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday morning.

A New York man wanted for murder was stopped by police after a fixed license plate reader on Interstate 95 in Baltimore County alerted authorities to his location. Keith Howard, 63, of Astoria, N.Y., was stopped by a Maryland Transportation Authority officer after a license plate reader near the Fort McHenry Tunnel detected his license plate Oct. 10, said transportation authority spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Green. Howard's vehicle had been flagged by New York authorities, who identified him as a suspect in stabbing death of his tenant, Karla Shah Boguwalski, 39, on Oct. 2, according to The New York Daily News, which first reported the story.

A Circuit Court judge has ruled against a contractor who claimed Baltimore County owed the company $1.4 million in a dispute over construction of the County Detention Center. Judge Judith C. Ensor rejected the appeal from George Moehrle Masonry Inc., a company based in Frederick, and affirmed the decision of a county hearing officer, who had awarded the company $72,603. According to a statement from the county, Moehrle had a $3 million contract for work to be performed in 2004 and 2005.

An Annapolis teenager who was charged with first-degree murder in a 2-year-old-girl's death remains at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center after being denied bail. Timothy Darnell Height, 17, is being charged as an adult in the death of two-year-old Amoir Faith Turner. She was found dead in bed Saturday, and early autopsy results show that she suffered several injuries, including a fractured skull, a broken leg and possible sexual assault, Annapolis Police Chief Michael A. Pristoop said at press conference Monday.

ELKTON -- Out-of-state police were called to help with a riot that broke out at a maximum-security tier of the Cecil County Detention Center early yesterday, officials said. The incident began about 4 a.m. when a correctional officer discovered a 26-year-old inmate bleeding from two wounds, said Capt. Linda S. Lannen, deputy director of the detention center, in an e-mail statement. After medics were called, 16 or so other inmates in the maximum-security tier "began destroying property and refused to be placed back in the cells," Lannen said.

Howard County police are investigating the death of a 24-year-old Howard County Detention Center inmate who apparently hanged himself using a bedsheet Tuesday and died that night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The death of Vaughn Hairston of Columbia came less than a year after Melanie C. Pereira, the jail director, issued a suicide prevention plan in response to the deaths of two inmates who hanged themselves last year and another who suffered an acute lung infection after a suicide attempt.

Baltimore County police have arrested two Baltimore men and charged them in a string of armed convenience store and restaurant robberies in Baltimore County since January.John Daniel Moseley, 27, of the 200 block of Aisquith St. and Jerome Jemel Lee, 27, of the 700 block of Mount Holly St. were arrested about 11: 40 p.m. Friday by detectives who spotted them at North Point Road and Baltimore Street, police said.Moseley, who was being held without bail in the Baltimore County Detention Center yesterday, was charged in five of the robberies.

Two months after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Howard County in the death of a 22-year-old inmate at the county Detention Center, the man's mother is suing again.Parrish Michael Spinoso died of an asthma attack in his cell on June 7, 1998. He had been arrested two days earlier during a raid on his Ellicott City apartment on drug charges.The lawsuit alleges that Spinoso didn't get his medication to fight his asthma problem. Spinoso's mother, Carol Lee Spinoso, sued Howard County in November.

After months of delays, the new Baltimore County Detention Center opened yesterday. But even move-in day for the inmates didn't stay on schedule. Despite instructions to bring no more than seven pairs of pants, seven shirts and seven pairs of socks, some inmates overpacked. Correctional officers forced them to discard extra items, pushing back some inmates' arrival until later in the morning. "The Salvation Army or the St. Vincent de Paul Society's going to have a banner day," said James P. O'Neill, the center's chief administrator, referring to the aid organizations.

County seeks OK to pay firm to testify in jail suit Baltimore County government is seeking County Council approval to pay an architecture firm up to $150,000 to testify in the county's lawsuit against three firms associated with the new jail in Towson. County Attorney John E. Beverungen told council members this week that the money would go to Crabtree, Rohrbaugh and Associates of Pennsylvania to provide analysis and testimony in a lawsuit filed in January in Baltimore County Circuit Court.